In our book, to say you were a contestant on the Gordon Ramsay bleepfest TV show, Hell’s Kitchen, is not a status credential. The majority of cheftestants, who can curse expertly but can’t consistently cook a simple piece of fish or beef, engender incredulity that they hold down professional jobs.

But Guy Vaknin, who was eliminated early on in the show’s recently concluded Season 10, proves that a Ramsay reject can open an inspired specialty eatery and do a terrific job. Who can get excited about Hell’s Kitchen’s pasta or scallop dishes when there’s Vaknin’s innovative sushi to be had?

No Fish

Beyond Sushi, the vegan sushi restaurant in New York City created by Vaknin (who was previously a kosher chef/caterer), offers an aesthetic alternative to traditional sushi. Yes, there‘s no fish in this sushi. Sushi simply means vinegared rice: su = vinegar, shi = rice.

The fare is an inspired approach to sushi that just happens to be low in sodium: No soy sauce is used. Instead, Chef Vaknin uses flavored vegetable purées as sauces for the sushi.

No White Rice

There’s also no white rice in Vaknin’s sushi. In the name of nutrition, flavor and aesthetics, Chef Vaknin employs black Chinese forbidden rice and a six grain rice made from rye berries (the whole kernel, which is ground to make rye flour for baking), two types of barley, black rice, brown rice and red rice. (Check out the different types of rice in our Rice Glossary, along with an overview of whole grains).

No Soy Sauce

Vaknin also cuts down on the sodium inherent in classic sushi, via the soy sauce. Even low sodium soy sauce has more than a meal’s allotment of sodium (Kikkoman’s low sodium soy sauce, for example, has 575 mg sodium per tablespoon, compared with 920 mg for its regular soy sauce).

Instead, all rolls are served with sauces made from tofu or veggie purée, such as carrot-ginger, jalapeño-wasabi, mango-chili, shiitake-teriyaki, toasted cayenne and white miso.

Vegetarians, vegans and omnivores alike will be charmed by these vegetable beauties, some with fruit accents. If the idea excites you, visit Beyond Sushi’s Facebook page, check out the photo gallery and roll your own.

Then, serve your beautiful and healthful creations for lunch, dinner, snacks and cocktail fare. It will have special fans among:

Vaknin scours farmers markets for the inspiration to combine great flavors, colors and textures. On the Beyond Sushi menu you’ll find:

Black rice, avocado, cucumber, mango and spicy veggies, topped with toasted cayenne sauce. Photo courtesy Beyond Sushi.

 
There are also a special Rolls Of The Month. You can enter your idea for the chance to win dinner for two. Some recent winners:

 
September’s special roll is black rice with Dijon-crusted roasted celery root and peaches topped with a blend of red cabbage, cilantro and celery and finished with celery root purée and whiskey marinated mustard seeds.

Are you ready to roll?
 
HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR SUSHI?

Check out our Sushi Glossary.

Añejo is not mixing Tequila; it’s sipping Tequila. Last night we enjoyed some añejo with an iced chocolate square and vanilla ice cream.

Wafting up from the snifter, the nose delivered light notes of almond, cherry, dried fruit and spice. The palate included banana, chocolate, honey and pear. Any wonder that this Tequila is so dessert-friendly?

Añejo Tequila is aged 1 year or longer, during which time it acquires complex aromas, intense flavors and coppery color from the oak barrels. Partida Añejo, one of the greatest Tequila brands, is aged in used Jack Daniels barrels for 18 months.

A simple but wonderful “dessert” is top-quality dark chocolate with a side of añejo.

You can also infuse dessert sauces with Tequila, such as this Tequila-custard sauce for fresh berries.
AGED TEQUILA: A BRIEF HISTORY

While Tequila has been distilled in Mexico since the arrival of the Conquistadors in the late 1520s, the aged Tequila styles, reposado and añejo, were developed in the early 1900s.

The move to aging happened when tequila producers thought to use the leftover brandy, rum and red wine casks that had been shipped from Spain to supply the Spanish aristocracy. This innovation changed the overall quality and taste of Tequila, which until then had been raw (unaged blanco/silver/white tequila) and without complexity.

More history of Tequila.

You can even enjoy añejo Tequila with simple shortbread or sugar cookies. Here, the rim of the glass is dipped into brown sugar. Photo courtesy Partida Tequila.

September is Bourbon Heritage Month. Bourbon and cherries are a wonderful pairing, as demonstrated by this recipe from Janina O’Leary, executive pastry chef at Trace restaurant in the W Hotel in Austin, Texas.

Cherries and Bourbon features an airy cupcake dipped in tres leches milk and fried. Alternatively, you can bake the cake in a pan and serve it as squares.
The cake is then topped with cherry sorbet and Bourbon ice cream swirl with meringue and cherry pie filling.

If this sounds like a lot of work (it is!), try the simplified version. Don’t fry the cake. Don’t swirl the sorbet and ice cream together, but serve two separate, small scoops. Don’t have time to make the cherry sorbet? Just make the vanilla-Bourbon ice cream. Don’t have time to make the ice cream? Buy a pint of vanilla, soften it, and stir in the Bourbon.

The cupcakes are topped with cherry sorbet and vanilla-bourbon ice cream, with an optional garnish of homemade cherry pie filling.

Cupcake Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease and flour a 9×9 inch pan or line a muffin pan with paper liners.

2. In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture, and mix well. Finally, stir in the milk until the batter is smooth. Pour or spoon the batter into the prepared pan.

3. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven; for cupcakes, bake 20 to 25 minutes. The cake is done when it springs back to the touch.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

Mix all ingredients, strain, and process in an ice cream machine.
 
 
RECIPE #3: MAKE YOUR OWN CHERRY PIE FILLING

You can substitute any fruit for the cherries. Whatever the fruit, this will be far better than most canned products.

Ingredients

1-1/2 cups cherries + 1 cup, fresh or frozen

Preparation

1. COMBINE. Add the ingredients to a medium saucepan; stir to combine.

2. HEAT. Cook over medium-low heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Raise heat and bring to a gentle boil; cook until desired consistency.

3. ADD. Stir in the final cup of cherries. Remove from heat and set aside until ready to serve.
 
 
RECIPE #4: VANILLA-BOURBON ICE CREAM RECIPE

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE. Combine the cream, milk, sugar, and salt in a large saucepan and cook, stirring frequently, over medium heat.

2. WHISK. Put the egg yolks in a bowl and whisk lightly.

3. COMBINE. When the cream mixture is starting to steam and tiny bubbles have formed along the edge of the pot, whisk a cup or so, ¼ cup at a time into the yolks, to temper the eggs.

4. WHISK. Once the eggs are tempered, whisk them into the cream mixture. Stirring constantly, cook over low heat or until the cream mixture has thickened enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon.

5. ADD. Turn off the heat and stir in the bourbon and vanilla extract. Process the mixture according to your ice cream maker’s instructions
 
 
ASSEMBLE

1. Place the cupcake in the center of the plate or bowl. Surround with spoonfuls of cherry pie topping.

2. Top the cupcake with cherry sorbet and vanilla ice cream.

3. Garnish with bourbon whipped cream or cherry whipped cream. Chef O’Leary has also garnished with cherry powder and edible flowers.
 
 
MORE RECIPES WITH BOURBON

The special-purpose scissors have a nonstick spatula base that “slides and lifts the slice.” You can buy them on Amazon or at Sur La Table.

While the nonstick base prevents scratches on metal pizza pans, at home, we use our everyday kitchen scissors to separate those clingy slices. (Pizza wheels never worked for us.)

An eight-inch kitchen knife like the one from Wustoff can do much more than slice pizza. If your knife skills aren’t as good as a culinary professional’s, you may find that a scissors can be your best friend in the kitchen.

You’ll find many uses for kitchen scissors, including:

 
HOW TO CHOOSE A KITCHEN SCISSORS

Make sure it’s stainless steel. Otherwise, you’ll find that rust spots crop up.

For a come-apart scissors, look for a screw mechanism rather than a metal bolt. A come-apart scissors design makes it easy to separate the two blades for cleaning or sharpening. But we’ve found that scissors secured with a simple bolt closure (turn and lift) may seem easier at first glance, but come apart in your hand when you don’t want them to—when you’re using the scissors!

That’s why we like the screw design of the Wustoff kitchen scissors. While Wustoff is a premier manufacturer of cutlery, the scissors are only $19.95 on Amazon.

Blade. You get what you pay for: The scissors associated with good cutlery manufacturers have blades that hold their sharpness longer.

 
How do you use your kitchen scissors?
  

We highly recommended them. We didn’t foresee then that these nutritious, slightly sweet, crunchy and flavorful biscuits would become our favorite grab-and-go breakfast and snack. (We also enjoy them as a sit-and-relax breakfast and snack.)

So we’ve promoted BelVita to Top Pick Of The Week. Read the full review and see of BelVita, which means beautiful life, can become part of yours.

The line is certified kosher by OU.

Find more of our favorite: